There truly is no philosopher like the great Adam Duritz, frontman for the rock band Counting Crows.
“Don’t it always seem to go that you don’t know what you got till it’s gone,” he sings in their song Big Yellow Taxi, which plays in my mind as I sit in the white, oversized waiting room of our local orthopedic clinic, waiting to get imaging done on my purple, oversized toe.
Side note on the clinic: it’s my first time in a doctor’s office like this, which given my athletic history and twenty-one years of life I chalk up to extraordinarily good luck, until now. There are probably seventy-five people in this waiting room. Like I said, it’s huge. I look around, make an observation and then spend another thirty seconds double checking that yes, I am in fact the youngest person by about forty years within these four, awkwardly lit walls. This brings a wry smile to my face as I’m called back.
The kind woman who takes me back asks me all the same questions that I just spent twenty minutes answering on a form I filled out as part of the clinic check-in process. She then gets three x-rays, one after another, of my foot, all the while double checking again that she is taking pictures of the correct one. I think about making a joke about how I don’t usually give out feet pics for free, but then walk it back. “Don’t make it weird, Jonathan,” I think.
I’m then led to another exam room, while I wait for the FNP who is a good friend of mine to look at my x-rays and deliver the news. Sitting there in the room by myself is so awkward. I feel a pressure to not look at my phone that I question briefly, and then commit to, so I just study the educational muscle chart across the wall from me.
My FNP friend walks in, makes eye contact with me, looks down at the piece of paper in his hand, back up at me and delivers the news: broken left big toe; no running for four weeks.
I’m pretty numb (emotionally speaking) at this point and one of my worst skills is processing feelings in real time (hence me writing this piece), so I just chat and talk about how I didn’t think it was broken, how terrible the timing is, and laugh at his semi-funny jokes (“You’ll need a boot. Lucky for you they come in two colors: black or black?”).
See, the thing is, I just began my senior year of college, and my final season of collegiate cross-country. For those who don’t know me personally, let me provide a little bit of backstory. My major was canceled going into my sophomore year of college, which still feels illegal and still hurts a little bit. My body has given me a really hard time when it comes to staying healthy and allowing me to compete, and when my very nuanced situation is looked upon from the outside, most people would say that my talent has underdelivered given the runner I was in high school. This hurts to write, but it’s true, and thankfully, myself and the people around me know that this isn’t the case. I have a very love/hate relationship with my sport and my body, that due to my sin nature, probably looks like a hate/hate relationship most of the time.
I had the opportunity to graduate a year early, and start grad school this fall. This was a conversation I had with my parents a couple of times, but I decided that I really wanted to take another year in undergrad; I had found a new outlet as a writer, as well as new friends, and I really wanted to take my fourth year of running, however much I loved or hated it. I’m also not a quitter, and to leave something that I had made a commitment to myself to do for four years before fulfilling my end of that nonexistent obligation would make me a loser. I try not to be a loser.
So you, reader, can see how disappointing this news is to me; it doesn’t officially end my season, but definitely puts a damper on it and makes setting new PR’s almost impossible. I find myself thinking “I stayed an extra year in school for this? To break my toe, chase a couple hobbies and twiddle my thumbs before I go do real-world things? ”
If there is one thing I’ve learned in fifteen years competing, it’s that sport giveth and taketh away. I have also learned through my walk with Christ that the Lord giveth and taketh away. The difference between them is that sport does so in a way that knows no justice, no mercy, and no grace. Thankfully for us, as imperfect, sinning children of God, the Lord is justice, is mercy and is grace. Sport, while an incredible, exciting, wonderful gift from the Lord, is not something that will ever satisfy us or be an end in and of itself, but is simply another opportunity for us to achieve our true end, which is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever. If it takes a broken toe for me to remember that, then I praise Him. If it didn’t take my pain and this awkward, pool flipper looking boot on my foot to remember it, I still praise Him.
I — if the Lord wills — will probably work in sports for the rest of my life. Thankfully I know, because of Ecclesiastes 3, I will have many more seasons, some that involve a ball or some running shoes, but many others that will involve a job, a house, if the Lord sees fit, a wife and kids, because the Lord is kind. And if I walk in front of a bus or one of those aforementioned seniors from the clinic driving their Buick to the grocery store tomorrow and die, the Lord is still kind. I am thankful every day for the gifts He has given me.
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